Winemaker Notes
Both rich and radiant, this wine offers a lovely array of aromas that include honeysuckle, citrus blossom, lemon zest, and crème brûlée. The citrus and floral notes are echoed on the palate, where they are framed by balanced acidity and hints of toasted oak, vanilla, and honey from aging in French oak barrels.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Dana Epperson focuses this wine on Running Creek, an estate vineyard on River Road in the Russian River Valley, providing 53 percent of the blend. Most of the rest comes from Keefer Ranch in Green Valley. Those cool, fog-driven sites bring out a delicate pear-blossom scent in this wine, adding fruit highlights to an otherwise earthy chardonnay, the flavor depth as yellow as the sun, without taking on its warmth.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2020 Migration Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is authentic to the AVA. TASTING NOTES: This wine shines with aromas and flavors of earth, dried leaves, mineral notes, and tart citrus. Pair it with panko-coated Petrale in a white wine reduction sauce with green peppercorns. (Tasted: June 9, 2022, San Francisco, CA)
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Jeb Dunnuck
Aged for 10 months in 40% new French oak, the 2020 Chardonnay Sonoma Coast is fresh with white flowers and citrus. The palate is medium-bodied and has a floral and confectionary feel, noted by candied pear and vanilla cream.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
A vast appellation covering Sonoma County’s Pacific coastline, the Sonoma Coast AVA runs all the way from the Mendocino County border, south to the San Pablo Bay. The region can actually be divided into two sections—the actual coastal vineyards, marked by marine soils, cool temperatures and saline ocean breezes—and the warmer, drier vineyards further inland, which are still heavily influenced by the Pacific but not quite with same intensity.
Contained within the appellation are the much smaller Fort Ross-Seaview and Petaluma Gap AVAs.
The Sonoma Coast is highly regarded for elegant Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and, increasingly, cool-climate Syrah. The wines have high acidity, moderate alcohol, firm tannin, and balanced ripeness.